Becoming Metropolitan: Urban Selfhood and the Making of Modern Cracow Northern Illinois University Press, August 2010

by Nathaniel D. Wood

An original work that challenges the reader to question whether national issues really were upmost in the minds of early twentieth-century rank-and-file Cracovians. As such, Becoming Metropolitan doubtless will spark discussion and interest in the field of Polish urban history.—Patrice Dabrowski, Harvard University

In the study of European cities before World War I, historians often focus on nationalism as the primary factor causing the rapid growth of Europe’s metropolises. However, in Becoming Metropolitan: Urban Selfhood and the Making of Modern Cracow, historian Nathaniel D. Wood makes clear that in the case of the Polish city of Cracow, it was not necessarily nationalism, but residents’ desire to become a modern, urban, and most importantly, European civilization, that fueled the dizzying growth of the city, whose population more than doubled, and whose technology and quality of life made momentous advances.